Educational technology offers numerous significant advantages. It offers students the flexibility to access learning from the sources they find most helpful and effective. Over the last couple of years, EdTech quickly became an indispensable tool without which millions of students, from grade school to college, could not have continued their education.
One of the world’s most successful and innovative creative schools, Miami Ad School Europe has redefined the approach to digital and creative creation. Founded by Ron and Pippa Seichrist in 1993 in Miami Beach, Florida, the school established its branches in San Francisco, New York, Buenos Aires, São Paulo Mumbai, and Sydney. In 2003 the school was founded in Hamburg, Germany as Miami Ad School Europe. By 2009 they had opened a second school in Berlin.
Sabine Georg, CEO of Miami Ad School Europe and COO of Infinity Campus. She shares, “Miami Ad School Europe is part of a wider international network with a total of 15 locations worldwide. The Infinity Campus is an international, online-only e-learning platform of this award-winning network.”
What makes this organization unique is that at the helm are two women trained as creatives. With a career in the advertising/marketing and corporate world supporting talent in an innovative, modern way, this school exists to ensure growth – either on a personal level or regarding the skill set of the next generation of creatives.
Diversity and Experience
With its two-year portfolio program in Art Direction / Digital Design, Creative Concepting / Copywriting and Creative Technology, Miami Ad School Europe unites many different schools in one. With an average of 10 students per class, the classes are small in size and personalized. “Literally colorful and diverse, we offer a home base for students from all over the world,” says Ina Behrendt, CIO of Miami Ad School Europe and CEO of Infinity Campus.
As part of Factory Berlin – the strongest ecosystem for innovation in Europe, Miami Ad School believes in collaboration, cooperation, exchange and partnerships. They are connecting ideas, people and resources to positively impact our network, environment and society. An interconnected, nurturing, and inspirational community, where Miami Ad School students get the opportunity to work and interact with like-minded individuals from all across the planet.
Here, it is all around bringing ideas to life and realizing concepts, with the overall goal of finding creative solutions for all kinds of problems. During their education, students intern for three quarters in international agencies and thus learn in the most direct way about their future job. Miami Ad School Europe has a vast network and relations with the best brands and ad agencies globally as well. “We help to enable creative minds to have outstanding ideas throughout constant change and transformation,” states Ina.
At the Helm
Ina is an internationally well-known award-winning, integrated Creative Director and Head of Design with over 15 years of experience with digital advertising, traditional agencies, and clients worldwide. Ina has lived in Sydney, Australia, and New York, USA, working at the most influential digital creative agencies like R/GA, New York, inventors of Nike+ and Razorfish Australia – creating game-changing and award-winning campaigns, platforms, and services for clients like Nike, eBay, and McCormick.
As Chief Innovation Officer for the Miami Ad School Europe, and as CEO for Miami Ad School’s online platform: The Infinity Campus, Ina leads the school regarding digital transformation and re-inventing the educational system for the digital age. She helps current and future business leaders with the rapid changes in the industry and economy to keep ahead and push individual boundaries.
Ina shares, “We are a place of infinite possibilities, of collaboration and discovery of challenge, of inspiration. The school is a refuge for the misfit, for the iconoclast, for the passionate, for the inventor and the visionary – a network of magic and writing, drawing, seeing, seeking and making and doing – a community that accelerates your dreams, where you become part of a global family, where everyone thinks like you and unlike you. This place is `The Place you go to, become whom you are meant to be.”
Ina achieved success by throwing herself out of her comfort zone and stepping into new areas while never stopping learning. She was recognized and awarded for her work and always loved to take on new challenges, and most of the time she created her own.
Based on Ina’s history of being a Diversity Advocate – she also co-founded ‘Women in Tech’ for the Australian market – she is pushing diversity in STEM fields across Europe and now running the innovation arm for a school that not just only has 70% international students on campus also out of 35 different nations from all sorts of different backgrounds. She constantly fosters collaboration and partnerships for more diversity.
Since June 2019, Sabine Georg, former Google Manager, took over as Managing Director of Miami Ad School Europe – The International Institute of Creative Innovations. She works hand in hand with Ina inventing new programs and platforms – to help the next generation of creative talent – to become who they are meant to be. Sabine is a trained artist who entered the New Media scene in the late 90ies, then ultimately started a consultancy job at Google in 2005, worked in Big Tech for almost 14 years with mentoring and coaching gigs to the side. She’s bringing together her passion for creativity and education in 2019 when becoming MD of Miami Ad School Europe and co-founding Infinity Campus with Ina in 2020 and their partner, Philip Wogart – CTO of Infinity Campus.
“Miami Ad School Europe — The International Institute of Creative Innovations, is one of the best and most awarded schools for young creatives worldwide. And I am happy to further move “MASE” towards digital transformation, i.e. through moving the school to the Factory Berlin as our new location, ensuring a stimulating environment and top infrastructure for our students,” states Sabine.
"It’s always a ‘WE’ never just a ‘ME’, so empower people and collaborate to help them achieve their best through your own leadership definition and language and shine a light on them, to create something bigger and better together"
The Infinity Campus
Miami Ad School has built its reputation over 25 years as a global network – and it’s developing it constantly further – for producing outstanding creative graduates who are ready to work from the first day on the job. This school’s unique educational concept pairs realistic training taught by well-known practicing industry professionals and hands-on job experience.
Owing to the recent pandemic, Miami Ad School Europe also had to change, invent and innovate even more and even faster! This has led to many changes, such as the new Factory Berlin location, in addition to new collaborations. Learning from the COVID-19 crisis the MASE team established the Infinity Campus – a robust and innovative new e-learning platform based on the foundation of INNOVATION, DIVERSITY & MINDSET.
Ina explains, “We are fostering a culture of creativity and prototyping. They always start in a small set-up and work their way through, step by step. Listen and learn through feedback and failure, to shape their ideas even further and aim for the better.”
Accelerating innovation in education for the next generation through the Infinity Campus, Ina’s aim is to establish a unique platform for special courses, trainings, summits, and boot camps made up of an expansive network of mentors – available online regardless of one’s physical location.
Over the years, Miami Ad School Europe has evolved and expanded at breakneck speeds, catering to an array of creative requirements for individuals and organizations across the world. “The change was guided by our vast expertise in the digital sphere and accelerated by the pandemic. As many things were disrupted by Covid and as a result, we tweaked or revamped many parts of the business,” shares Sabine.
The Leaders of Tomorrow
While Sabine brings a hands-on, inspiring, and encouraging approach to her leadership, Ina loves to come up with new products, services, and business models. Together they foster collaboration with partners and experts to gain for the better. “It’s always a ‘WE’ never just a ‘ME’, so empower people and collaborate to help them achieve their best through your own leadership definition and language and shine a light on them, to create something bigger and better together,” states Ina.
To the next generation of creators and disruptors, Ina says, “it’s all about cross-industry, cross-channel, and cross-topics thinking – we call in phenomenon-based learning. And yes, if you and your community transform, sometimes you have to make decisions that feel uncomfortable in the first place and like cold waters – but it’ll pay off soon. Try to follow these principles: observe + invent + prototype/ test + disrupt + accelerate and repeat.”
